Most young players receive a promotion bonus as they go up throughout the season. If you promote someone during the arbitration meetings and free agent signing cycles, will they still get that bonus, or is it better to wait until the preseason/season starts to promote them?

If you have playing time for the player, there is no such thing as too early. Keeping players on the farm who can help you win 85-90 games minimum in favor of a roster built to lose 100 for that #1 pick is unfair.

Eeyore is exactly right. Its only too early if the player in question doesn't get everyday playing time. If you call them up and use them part-time or as a bench warmer, that will stunt their development. But if they can help your ML team, and he'll play, he'll develop just fine (or possibly better due to the better coaching as was alluded to)

I called up an overall #1 pick (SP) out of college from Low-A to AAA after his draft year because he had the ratings to pitch at AAA. I figured he'd get regular starts, have better coaching than in Hi-A or AA and thus would continue to progress. He only gained 5 overall points and roughly the same across the board for splits, pitches, etc. He threw up a 6.38 ERA and was 6-17 with right at 70 stam/70 control/60 splits/80 velo/60 GBFB/and 70/60/50/40/30 pitches. I left him at AAA the following season, paid out the wazoo for a good pitching coach and he's shown a little better improvement, but I really believe bringing him up early stunted his growth.

Not sure how to post a link, but it's Dillon Malone on my Honolulu team. He's at the ML level now because I brought him up in September of this season.

The main reason I believed there was a bonus for promoting a player is because there is often a penalty for demoting a player...I have yet to see a player lose ratings for being demoted in the pre season

There is not really a bonus for promotions. If a player recently had a ratings update, then the promotion will not show up in the ratings. If he was close to having an update, then the promotion will show. If he got a ratings boost, he was due for it, anyway. And fom what I understand, there is not a demotion penalty prior to the Rule 5 draft.

Posted by musketeer22 on 5/1/2013 10:39:00 AM (view original):I called up an overall #1 pick (SP) out of college from Low-A to AAA after his draft year because he had the ratings to pitch at AAA. I figured he'd get regular starts, have better coaching than in Hi-A or AA and thus would continue to progress. He only gained 5 overall points and roughly the same across the board for splits, pitches, etc. He threw up a 6.38 ERA and was 6-17 with right at 70 stam/70 control/60 splits/80 velo/60 GBFB/and 70/60/50/40/30 pitches. I left him at AAA the following season, paid out the wazoo for a good pitching coach and he's shown a little better improvement, but I really believe bringing him up early stunted his growth.

Not sure how to post a link, but it's Dillon Malone on my Honolulu team. He's at the ML level now because I brought him up in September of this season.

To answer this question, I'm seeing more "erratic" development than ever before. I guess it was roughly a year or so ago I started a thread called "The Broken Things" in the suggestion forum. One of the BT was development patterns. patrick885 responded in the thread and said that development was not as predictable as I(and pretty much everyone else) made it out to be. I politely called "bullshit". However, since then, I've seen varying patterns of progression and decline.

I have no idea if there was a bug wrt to development/decline that they were unaware of at the time or if they tweeked the engine. But I've noticed a change.

Posted by MikeT23 on 5/3/2013 2:41:00 PM (view original):They don't have feelings. Failure doesn't get in their head. They may be overmatched but a 71 is still a 71 whether they're hitting .350 or .150. Playing time, training and coaching develops players.

I hear that. That would be the intuititve answer, but it appears the empirical data and the resource material say otherwise. Im going to have to stick with those two reasons as opposed to thinking something just because I think it should be that way.

i have continued to see players who have high ceilings (80s) stay in the low 70s because they skip levels and get rushed to much.
Better coaching or not...I (almost never) see a AAA or ML guy before a prime of 27 ever move up more than 1 overall point season to season. where other levels can gain 2-6 or more.
I just see once you have them there they are now locked and you lose that top side. Others feel the same?